"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither
more or less. (...) The question is which is to be master - that's all." (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass)

Would the American Michael Brown have become the master of the astronomers (?), quoting Humpty-Dumpty in his 2006 article, "What is a Planet ?", perhaps after his reading of my Solar System: What is a Planet in Astrology ? (2000-2002), or my uranian portrait in The Planetaries (2002), but certainly not the master of the astrologers... What makes of a body a significant planetary Operator in Astrology ?
This text is a supplement to my 2000-2002 paper, and thanks to the
recent discoveries of planetary objects by telescopes and astronomers
(since 2002), there are now twelve planetary astrological operators :
the Sun · Mercury · Venus · the Moon · Mars
· Ceres · Jupiter · Saturn · Chiron . Uranus · Neptune · Pluto. And no other.

The recent discoveries of planetoids with modern telescopes has allowed
a few rare astrologers (in France not many more than two) to become
aware of the usefulness of a new reflection on planetary operators.
Which objects of the nearby sky, within the limits of the solar system,
are likely to durably inscribe their rhythm in the organism, so that a
neuro-physiological impregnation can translate over time into a
psychological habituation ? In other words, which planets
have an effect on the nervous system ? Which celestial objects
form the Planetary, not as much outside of us, but, as Paracelsus
understood it, necessarily within us? As we will see at the end
of this paper, I am returning to a more simple scheme than the one I
arrived to through my indications of June 2000 : the planets
and planetoids discovered the last two centuries (from Piazzi in 1801)
can be fitted into three groups : one group between Mars and Jupiter
(the asteroidal belt, in yellow on the picture), a very heterogeneous
one between Jupiter and Pluto (the Centaurus, in brown), and a third
one after Neptunus (the Kuiper belt, in green). There are still a few
small-scale bodies gravitating on other orbits and beyond the Kuiper
belt (Oort or d'Öpik-Oort cloud), but they are negligible, as are
the dust and detritus which necessarily subsist in any satellized
stellar system, and their remoteness has no cyclical meaning with
regard to the human lifespan. These three groups each have their
head : Ceres for the asteroids, Chiron for the centaures,
and Pluto-Charon for the so-called kuiperian objects.

The first "plutoïd" or "TNO" (Trans-Neptunian Object) has only
been detected on 30 August 1992 by David Jewitt and Jane Luu : it is
the unnamed trans-neptunian object (15760) 1992 QB1. Fifty years
earlier, but thirteen years after Pluto's discovery, the Parisian
astrologer Dom Neroman states that "Pluto is part of another group of Asteroids" but rejects its influence : "we would be wrong troubling ourselves here" (Dom Néroman, Traité d'astrologie rationnelle, Paris, Sous le Ciel 1943, p.21). And at page 67 : "Pluto has in all likelihood been pulverised like the Asteroids." The plutonian aporia is nothing new.

The astronomers of the 26th GA of the International Astronomical Union,
under the guidance of Michael E. Brown, have decided in August 2006 in
Prague to oust Pluto from its status, to redefine the notion of planet,
and to add to it an intermediary category defined by the label dwarf
planet, including initially Pluto, Ceres and Eris, to which Haumea and
MakeMake were added in 2008. That was only a start. The number of
planetoids of the Kuiper belt which would meet the definition of a
dwarf planet is estimated at more than two hundred, and approximately
two thousand gravitating beyond. In the coming years, this category
will probably keep growing with new members until... its likely
implosion, and until the indications of its inanity become evident. The
text of the resolutions B5 and B6 of the IAU :

In other words planets, like the so-called dwarf planets, are bodies in
orbit around a star, massive enough for the gravitational forces to
give them a quasi-spherical shape. But the planets have cleared the
neighbourhood around their orbit as opposed to so-called dwarf planets.
Unfortunately this definition does not hold up, and the astronomers of
the Prague GA are neither experienced kantians nor highly qualified
spinozists. According to the astrophysicist Alan Stern,
only four planets (Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Uranus), would strictly
fulfill the criterion differentiating the planets from their supposedly
dwarf sisters. Mars, Jupiter, Neptune and the Earth have not completely
cleared the neighbourhood of their orbits. Approximately ten thousands
asteroids circulate in the Earth's neighbourhood, and more than hundred
thousand, the troyans, in Jupiter's (see also the communication of 19 September 2008
of the Planetary Science Institute : the astronomers seem to find
themselves again in the same situation in which the astrologers have
been wallowing for a century...).

Moreover, the so-called dwarf planets do not themselves have to be
satellites, which excludes the satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus et
al., but not really Charon, as we don't know whether it is a
'satellite' of Pluto, or a co-planet (see below). We are in the
presence of a kind of jurisdictional council, trapped in its own
contradictions, more than in the presence of a real scientific
demonstration, and even further away from what science historians have
called an "epistemological rupture".

Approximate compared sizes of the Earth, the Moon, of five so-called dwarf planetary bodies and of their satellites (12-2010).

These reshuffles by the astronomical community indicate firstly that
until 2006 the astronomers did not have a clear definition of the
scientific object called "planet", and that
they had not weighted its conditions and its significance. At least
they have the merit of arousing new questions among the astrologers, or
in reality among a very small fraction of them.

We have to rethink this matter from the beginning and wonder, following
the discovery of these new bodies gravitating around the solar star,
which are the efficient factors, in short which are the old and new
planetary operators the astrologer must take into account not only for
the construction of a chart, but also and above all for the
organisation and harmonisation of the celestial dynamics in relation
with the terrestrial receptor. Some assertions of my first text about
this matter (June 2000) are outdated (see The Solar System: What is a Planet in Astrology ?). The
reason is the discovery of important planetoids after this date. The following statements have become obsolete.

All the trans-Neptunian objects (TNO), named planetoids or
planetesimals, have sidereal periods comparable to that of Pluto. But
Pluto remains the only TNO known to possess a satellite; it is nearly
100 times more massive than the other known planetoids (with the
exception of Charon), and the global mass of Pluton and Charon
represents about 50% of the total mass of the planetoids.

The orbit of Pluto is the only one to cross the orbit of
another planet. Some astronomers, and also the young Kant, find in that
fact a criterion that justifies classifying it as the last planet of
the solar system.

The question should not be whether the size of a body exceeds a
certain arbitrary threshold, but rather what is the relationship of
size between the given body with what precedes and what follows it.
Hence the quotient of the radius R of the last planet divided by that
of the first non-planet (asteroid) should be larger or comparable to
the quotient of the radius of the penultimate planet divided by that of
the last: R Pluto / R Ceres> R Mercury / R Pluto (the relationship
Ceres / Vesta does not verify this formula). The same result emerges
from the relationship of the masses if one takes the Moon in place of
Mercury.

However, a comparative study of the physical and astronomical criteria
of the main recently discovered bodies would tend to 'rehabilitate'
Pluto (re-baptised TNO 134340 !) and to maintain its exceptional
character within the Kuiper belt. The following data are continuously
updated by the IAU based on the most recent observations. The
astronomical data are no longer jealously protected, but they are
henceforth accessible to the public. However, the different servers,
updated on the same day, give slightly different data. Therefore one
must only use them with caution. They are temporary data. The planetary
diameters are only approximate, and even the plutonian period is not
known with certainty, eighty years after its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh.

The inclination of the equator on the plane of the orbit, not mentioned
in the table because it is unknown for most planetoids, is not a
discriminatory factor : Mars (25.19°), Saturn (26.73°) and
Neptune (28.32°) have an inclination comparable to that of the
Earth (23.45°), but Jupiter (3.13°) and Mercury (0.01°)
have an inclination of nearly zero, Ceres has an intermediate
inclination (10.60°), Uranus (97.77°), Pluto (122.53°) and
above all Venus (177.36° or -2.64°) have such a strong
inclination that these planets spin round in the direction opposite to
their orbit.

At the end of the 2000s, they wanted to dethrone Pluto in favour of
Eris, on the pretext of a higher diameter, and with the aim of
highlighting the recent discoveries. Yet the evaluations are regularly
revised downward for Eris and upward for Pluto. In November 2015 the
respective diameters of Pluto and Eris are estimated at 2370 and 2325
km. Pluto itself, without its huge satellite Charon (discovered on 22
June 1978 by the American astronomer James W. Christy), remains the
most massive body of the Kuiper area. And they will have disqualified
Pluto through the intervention of false data – which seems to have
become an American specialty.

1. Pluto is the only known element having a round-shaped satellite.
Charon himself has a diamater of 1200 km, larger than Quaoar, than
Orcus and maybe even than Haumea. Pluto also has four other small
satellites : Hydra, Nix, Kerberos and Styx.

Neither Mercury nor Venus have a known satellite. Deimos and Phobos,
Mars' satellites, are shapeless, and among the 63 known satellites of
Jupiter, only four have a round shape, being Io, Europa, Ganymede and
Callisto, the other ones resembling simple "stones” discovered from
1892. [However it may be that an earlier observation of Ganymede has
taken place during the summer of 365 BC by the Chinese astronomer Gan
De (see the hard to access article by Xi Zezong : "The Discovery of Jupiter's Satellite made by Gan De 2.000 years before Galileo", in Chinese Physics 2.3, 1982, pp. 664-667 ; and Helaine Selin (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-western Cultures, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1997, p.342.]

2. The sum of the diameters of Pluto and Charon is approximately 3600 km (2370 + 1230).

Charon's diameter is higher than Ceres'. Pluto-Charon is probably a
double planet. The barycentre of the Pluto-Charon pair is situated
outside the two bodies. Neither of the two objects really rotates
around the other, and they have a comparable mass and diameter. Because
they are coming closer together, Pluto's atmosphere composed of methane
particles, also envelops Charon : the Pluto-Charon binary system is
thus composed of a unique atmosphere. For the astrologer interested in
the planetary cycles from a terrestrial perspective, only 'the large diameter' of Pluto-Charon counts,
which is for that matter comparable to the Moon's. And it is the cycle
of the Pluto-Charon binary star which is registered, imperceived by the
terrestrial organism, as are the cycles of Jupiter and its satellites,
of Saturn and its satellites, and so on. But while the Pluto-Charon
operator forms one entity, this is not the case for any other planet of
the solar system.

3. The characteristics of the plutonian orbit are extreme (inclination
of 17°, period of 248 or 249 years), but allow the Pluto-Charon
entity into the planetary operators.

As the earth's inclination defines the angle of the ecliptic plane to
the equator's plane, and as astrologers refer the planetary positions
to this ecliptic, an angle smaller than 23°30 (varying with time)
is acceptable. One fourth of the planetary revolution must be within a
human lifespan (approximately 62 years for Pluto-Charon). Indeed, the
neuro-physiological crystallisation causing a planetary body to become
an operator is inscribed at the star's quadrature (see my text about the planetary ages).

4. The harmony and resonance of the uranian cycle with the neptunian
and plutonian cycles is a leading factor in the rehabilitation of
Pluto-Charon as planetary operator in its own right, even though it
remains of a very different nature from the other planets.

What about the other so-called dwarf planets and their main challengers ?

- Only the Pluto-Charon pair has a diameter comparable to that of the
Earth's satellite. The other planetoids are much smaller, including
Eris, and in particular Quaoar and Orcus.
- Haumea's roundness is debatable. And the excessive sidereal period of Sedna disqualifies it.
- Due to their strong inclinations, 2007-OR10, Haumea, MakeMake,
and above all Eris are bodies cyclically foreign to the
terrestrial/solar dynamic.

Pluto-Charon remains the dominating element of the multiplicity of the
so-called trans-neptunian objects, and more precisely of the planetoids
belonging to the Kuiper belt. However, as I suggested in my last post
on Cura's forum, the astrologer shall not only reason based on the
physical and astronomical properties of the planetary bodies, but also
keep in mind the disposition of the astrological structures (the
Planetary, the planetary Ages, even the planetary Houses), because only
the harmonisation between these different structures ensures the matrix
cohesion inherent and necessary to astrology.

The eradication of Pluto by the astronomical council of 2006 will at
least have had one favourable result : rehabilitating Ceres, which
becomes a dwarf planet for the astronomer, and for the astrologer
- as I recommend from now on - a planet, in other words a
planetary operator in its own right. The astrologers must henceforth
reckon with the discovery of Ceres, on 1st January 1801, by Giuseppe
Piazzi. In his work published in Palermo in 1802, Della scoperta del
nuovo pianeta Cerere Ferdinandea, ottavo tra i primari del nostro
sistema solare, Ceres is properly referred to as a planet, which will
be dedicated to King Ferdinand III of Sicily.

In my previous works, I had retained the asteroid from the angle of the
planetary Ages (importance of language learning during the ceresian
age) and from the angle of belonging to the system of the 11 common
colours, but I did not recommend using it in the birth chart. As of
now, I defend this option, knowing that Ceres' mass alone represents
one third of the mass of all asteroids taken together. Moreover Ceres
is the only known round-shaped asteroid, and has a larger size than
Quaoar (diameter of approximately 950 km). Ceres is the major element
of a first group of planetoids gravitating between Mars and Jupiter.
Pluto is the major element of a second group of planetoids gravitating
beyond Neptune in the Kuiper belt. Through the decision of August 2006,
the (extremely rare) serious astrology, far from having lost one
planet, has gained one.

Addenda November 2015

As for Chiron, also classified as a comet because of its high
eccentricity (approximately 0,38) and despite its small diameter
(approximately 225 km, but fifteen times higher than the core of the
Halley comet), it remains the major element of the group of the
Centaurs (estimated at almost 50.000). Chiron seems to have a
rudimentary system of rings, like the giant planets (Jupiter to
Neptune) and like the centaur Chariclo (of a slightly higher diameter
but with an excessive inclination, 23.5°). Only in January 2009 did
I identify Ceres with my 'winter Moon' and did I assign her to Pisces
(see The Planetaries and mainly the French updated version).
I needed 7 more years before accepting Chiron, the tiny protagonist of
another asteroidal belt, the Centaurs, situated between Jupiter and
Pluto. Mea culpa, all the more so as numerous mainly English-speaking astrologers have been using it for years. But what are they not using?

A planetary body, whether it is called a planet, a dwarf planet, or a
planetoid by the astronomers, is significant for astrology, if its
sidereal revolution is compatible with the human lifespan (or more
precisely, at least the fourth of its period must be shorter than this
lifespan), if the inclination of its orbit with the ecliptic plane does
not exceed a certain threshold (approximately 20 degrees), and if its
size makes it a distinct element or main element of a group, isolated
from the other astrologically significant bodies by its orbit.

(5) On a side note, Chiron was discovered in 1977, less than two months before a Sylvie made me discover astrology.
(6) Early August 1846 , pictures of James Challis, UK (cf. CN 84, 2000 and
its English version) ; end August 1846, calculation by 'Urbain Le Verrier, FR ; 23 Sept. 1846, observation by Johann Galle, G.

Chiron perfectly fits (approximation 0.01%) in my table of Harmonies of
the solar system (2000, revised and corrected) and of the dividers of
the sidereal revolutions, and is in resonance with Mercury and to a
lesser extent with Neptune. Generally speaking, the planetary periods
are in resonance with the first eight prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, 11,
13, 17 and 19), or even only with six of them when removing the numbers
13 and 17 which are represented only once.

Planets

S. R. (days)

S. R. (calcul)

error

MOON

27.3216

27

1.18%

-

-

-

-

-

-

3

3

3

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

MERCURY

87.969

88

0.035%

2

2

2

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

11

-

-

-

VENUS

224.701

225

0.13%

-

-

-

-

-

-

3

3

-

-

5

5

-

-

-

-

-

EARTH

365.256

364

0.20%

2

2

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

7

-

13

-

-

EARTH (2)

365.256

363

0.62%

-

-

-

-

-

-

3

-

-

-

-

-

-

11

11

-

MARS

686.98

686

0.003%

2

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

7

7

7

-

-

-

-

CERES

1679.78

1680

0.01%

2

2

2

2

-

-

3

-

-

-

-

5

7

-

-

-

-

JUPITER

4332.82

4332

0.02%

2

2

-

-

-

-

3

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

19

19

SATURN

10755.7

10752

0.03%

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

-

-

3

7

-

-

-

-

CHIRON

18394

18392

0.01%

2

2

2

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

11

11

-

19

URANUS

30687

30685

0.007%

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

5

-

-

17

19

19

URANUS (2)

30687

30720

0.108%

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

3

5

-

-

-

-

NEPTUNE

60190

60192

0.003%

2

2

2

2

2

-

3

3

-

-

-

-

-

11

-

-

19

PLUTO

90553

90552

0.001%

2

2

2

-

-

-

3

-

-

-

7

7

7

11

-

-

-

The twelfth and final planet, dwarf or planetoid, of the astrological
solar system falls to Sagittarius without dignity (except an "autumnal
Mars" awaiting identification). The model of dignities or planetary
Regents, which I conceived thirty years, can see the day.